Good morning
The headlines:
- iPhone gambling.
Link: the introduction of mobile casinos.
Big Fish Games Inc. is introducing real virtual slot machines for iPhones (and tablets, etc) in the UK where it is legal.
Mobile swiping. It’s expected to result in wagers of “$100 billion” by 2017. Which is, you know, hectic. And Big Fish Gambling enables users to link their bets to their credit card numbers.
!
I myself am looking forward to the day that the Huffington Post reports on the 3 year old that gets hold of Daddy’s cellphone and suddenly “£3.7 million lost by a toddler”.
Obviously, there will be a safety feature whereby credit deductions are smsed to your phone. At which point, the toddler goes “ooh – make it jingle some more”.
- Hypersonic flight.
Link: “flight” is a euphemism.
This was the new plane that is meant to get from London to New York in an hour or something. Loose fuselage (like – the tip of a guiding thruster or something) caused it to crash after a minute.
That is not “flight”. If something is airborne for a minute, it is “falling”.
And this is the second time.
The link is a video. Here’s a picture that I found of the X51A Waverider (ironic):
Usual disclaimer: I have no rights to the picture whatsoever.But it’s obviously an artistic impression because that baby looks like it’s flying.
- “I always paid at least 13% in tax.”
Link: Romney’s defence.
Romney says “13%” like it actually is some sort of defence. I mean – the Obama administration has him there – not disclosing the tax returns does look suspicious.
Although, if I was rumoured to be worth $250 million and I was running for president – I think tax suspicion might be a lesser evil than firmly alienating the poor.
The real claim here is that his effective tax rate is “higher than the average American family effective tax rate of 7.6%”. Mitt is clearly relying on/hoping for the average American’s poor grasp of the social objective of taxation. Which is, from what I understand, making the people worth $250 million pay more “effective tax” than the lower class average American.
Redistribution of wealth and all that.
That said: social objectives tend to be a Democrat invention anyway. So whatever.
- The Lonmin Massacre.
Link: SA Police open fire on protesters.
Bad day for Lonmin – because their CEO was also hospitalised. Presumably as a result of shock and distress: because the violent strike had already resulted in lost output, and then the police cruise in and open up on the protestors, killing at least 10.
The irony here is that the strike had almost nothing to do with Lonmin management. The fighting is between two rival trade unions – where the one is trying to encroach on the turf of the other. And people had already started dying before the police arrived.
And, um, typically the trade unions are now blaming the massacre on Lonmin and the other trade union.
The result? The actual result was this happening to the share price:
But the more pertinent result is that Lonmin will end up losing output, settling with the trade unions, incurring the medical costs of the injured, paying off the families of the recently deceased, and generally spending a lot of money to get its mining operations back on track.
The Rand weakened slightly against the dollar, but was overall not really affected:
- Facebook hits yet another “record low”.
Link: the lifting of share bans.
The first round of trade bans lifted yesterday (read an explanation in item 4 from Monday’s post). The share price, predictably, dropped below the $20 mark.
No big surprises there.
That’s all for now.
Have a good day.
